RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Since the acquisition of my KT I have become very interested in the tank world. So much that I dusted off my old S&S Bulldog and am giving it a complete once over.
So far it has realistic battle damage (some parts have been broken off over the years and I have had to fills some holes and sand down some nubs. Not much else you can do there but make it look like it took some fire.
I also finally made the turret turn 360. It was always an annoyance of the model but the solution was easy. round down the flat spot in the gear and file in 3 extra teeth.
I also took the time to fix the smoke pump which stopped working about 2 yrs ago. BTW is everyone else's this noisy..it sucks.
I also removed the red led from the turret that indicates the tank is about to fire..Im not 3yo and dont need it. Additionaly the arm switch has been made permanent and the switch in the upper turret removed. The red LED in the front of the tank was also removed as I did not find it on any photos I could scavenge and the red didnt make sense. I kept the piece in case I am proved wrong.

The tank has been completely field stripped and painted up in primer grey. This feels like a mistake now seeing how a nice primer grey would look good faded through but oh well.

I have ordered a few different motors to see if I can get more a higher top speed out of the tank seeing how it is a bit slow for scale.

BTW how do you guys paint your threads? This is one thing I have not been able to figure out so far.

Ill post some pictures soon.

sounds like youve been busy, get them pics up , how do you guys paint your threads ?
regards, ice

Its been about two days work really.. It my first time pulling one of these apart as well so it has been a bit of exploratory surgery as well.

Ok I braved the fumes and took a few pictures. Nothing to really look at yet but the paint definitely looks better then it did before. It doesn't feel so PLASTIC now. Filling in all the seams on the gun barrel will be nice as well.
I also used the back edge of an xacto blade to open up all the vents that weren't from the factory (hard to see in a photo graph.

Got a fan to help keep everything cool but haven't decided where to mount it. Am I correct to assume everyone just solders it onto the on/off switch..seems reasonable

good start , yep soldering the fan to the on/off switch will be fine
regards, ice

Here is a mod you may consider, Direct cooling of the RX18. The link if older as the vendor has since gone silent but the fans are easy to purchase and the link describes how to install the fans for max cooling.This is the same RX18 unit in my first tank Tiger S13 still running strong.

Sax




http://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums/v ... COOLING+RX" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

that looks good but i am still rocking the older control board. Is it a direct swap to install the newer control unit and what can it offer over the old one?

Also forgive me for my lack of knowledge on the subject but, Wikipedia only gets you so far. On the main turret where the red warning light was mounted, is that where a machine gun was mounted in turret in reall life. I find it hard to believe that it is where the commander or gunner would look out like HL put it. If this is so I will retain the flashing led and create a "barrel" for the led to sit in.

This is the section on Fixing new tanks, or better know as what did Heng Long get wrong.

http://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums/v ... .php?f=119" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yeah its a bit short really... I have had my own issues but I will share them shortly and if they are good enough I will add them to the forum you described.

Here is a look at my goal for this tank

So one thing I noticed while pulling this tank apart is just how crappy the wiring is laid out and how poor the solder joints are.. It is a wonder my tank didnt stop working before. Put this together with the complete lack of any kind of color coding and it can be a nightmare. I had no less then 5 solder connection break during my over haul. It took me 2 hours of testing to figure out where the wires were supposed to go and then replace and resolder the connections...God bless tamiya for clean wiring.

With that out of the way I set out to add my fan cooling. I wanted to locate it so that there would be a faily clear flow path across the FETs and at the same time limt dust intake while providing fresh air. I chose to install my fan directly under the ESC to ensure maximum cooling but there was no place for the fan to exhaust so I drilled 7 holes and covered the holes with plastic screening. I also had to use my dremel to cut out a mounting post and trim back the access hatch for smoker switch. With this setup the air should draw in through the vents in the back, across the engines (bonus), over the ESC, and out the bottom of the tank.

I then wired the fan to the smoke generators connection as I am no longer going to use that unit (its a piece of junk anyway and way to noisy)